Bronco Wings
by Simon S. Borderline
Summary: When a competition to determine the best flier Gilda takes advantage to show up her formal best friend RD. But in the coure of her training will a mysterious Bronco put an early end to her training, and her friend?
1. Chapter 1

I claim nothing relating to MLP:FIM or anything affiliated with Hasbro or Hub. (All their products suck anyway)

I wrote this story because i wanted to see more of Gilda. She was a strong abrasive character i couldn't help but want to set straight myself.

If you came here looking for a clopping story you're way off. Enjoy my story kiddies! Please review!

-Bronco Wings

The sun was high in the sky when Gilda burst through the clouds followed by her two friends, Talon and Flare. Gilda swooped down just over the treetops and snapped back a twig or two to keep her friends alert. Talon was quick, but not quick enough apparently, right when he was about to boast to Flare a huge branch reached up and smacked him in the face.

Gilda laughed when she saw him tumble into the trees, but stopped when Flare got into position to take the leader's place. Gilda wasn't about to give up her position, especially to that one. Gilda and Flare had been long time friends, and long time rivals. Each of them always did something to up the anty on the other, and Gilda knew she was just dying to break out some new move she learned or perfected herself. But she wasn't going to give her that chance.

Gilda dropped back a bit to let Flare have the lead, then she took matters into her own paws. She reached up and bit Flare's tail, then pulled hard and as her friend screeched she jumped on her back and leapt forward gaining more forward momentum and leaving Flare in the dust. Finally after an hour of flying she settled down on a river bank and waited for her friends to catch up.

"Hey that wasn't funny!" Talon said as he landed behind her. He was still rubbing his big red cheek. Then Flare joined them.

"What are you talking about it was riot! But you didn't have to cheat like that you know." Flare said.

"I wasn't cheating. I was practicing for the elimination round."

"This was just a speed run, Gilda! It wasn't practice for anything!"

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"If the beak fits..."

"Oh, yeah? Well what about yesterday when you shoved that thundercloud in my face?"

"That wasn't cheating, it was just creative thinking."

"Well then that's what I did."

Gilda and Flare kept arguing and Talon just ignored them. They did this at least three times a day. Usually it was over before they went into an all out fight, then they would joke around a bit and be back to normal.

"I need a drink." He said as passed the two, who were now arguing about the size of their feathers. Girls. Talon closed his eyes as he bent over the water's edge and placed a foot on the bank to keep him from falling in. His foot slipped however and he tumbled down the ten foot muddy embankment into the riverbed below. The noise distracted the girls as they went to see what was the matter. Though before they reach him the saw the problem, there was no water in the river. It had completely disappeared. Talon pulled himself up and spat out globs of mud.

"Hey Talon nice faceplant loser!" Flare teased him then laughed. Talon looked from her to the near mirror image of himself in the mud, then back to her and smiled.

"Do you guys hear that?" Gilda said as she flew further upstream. Flare swooped over to her and listened. Talon couldn't get a footing on a the slippery mud the whole time and fell over on his back.

"Ow, what is it?" He said as he too heard something like the waves crashing onto a shore.

"I don't know, maybe somebody's building a dam?" Flare offered her explanation.

"I don't think so. It sounds more like..." Gilda didn't finish her sentence as she was interrupted by a sudden loud boom, at least twice as loud as thunder. Seconds later a whistling black form flew from the canopy overhead in the direction of Equestria. The griffons barely caught a glimpse before it began to vanish in the distance.

"What was that!" Gilda shouted as her ears were ringing. Flare turned around and started nudging her friends shoulder, trying to get her attention. Gilda took one look at her spooked face then turned around. There coming down the stretch of riverbed was a wall of water at least twenty feet tall.

"We gotta move!" Gilda shouted as she flew away with Flare in tow.

Down below however, as Talon tried to take off he quickly fell back down to earth. He tried again, flapping his wings harder this time and wondered why they were so heavy. Then it dawned on him, his fears were confirmed when he looked back and found his wings caked in mud.

"Hey! YOU GUYS!" The girls kept flying without him as if they couldn't hear him. Talon drew a deep breath and screeched as loud as he could to get their attention. The girls heard him just as they were starting to wonder what happened to him. They searched for him and found him still in the riverbed with the water bearing down on him. Even if he climbed the bank the water would still reach him. Gilda and Flare dove for him as fast as they could but it was too late. The water overtook him, his screams were muffled by the rush of water.

The wave flowed over the banks taking with it small trees, logs, and even eroded several feet from the bank itself, stretching the riverbed further into the forest. Gilda and Flare glided along the surface of the water searching for their friend. Flare spotted his tail before it disappeared beneath the froth. Flare hovered over the spot she saw his tail and tried to reach down with her front paws, but log pried from its resting place in the mud jumped up instead and nearly hit her in the face. She was too quick for it though, thanks to Gilda and her pranks she was always ready for the unexpected.

"Help!" Talon shouted as he managed to keep his head above water. He waved to them and shouted something, but again the rush of water made it impossible to hear.

"Gilda! Why do they call this cloudy river falls?" Flare shouted.

It was true, this river went over a waterfall over a hundred feet high. They flew faster as the sound of crashing water grew louder. They were very close to the falls, and the water kept ripping up trees and debris making it harder for them to get close enough to Talon. Gilda made a desperate hardheaded dive for her friend under a falling cypress when he suddenly disappeared. This was it, the end of the line. Talon was now free falling down the falls and Gilda hadn't caught him.

"Talon!"

"I got him!" Flare swooped down from the sky at breakneck speed. Gilda lost sight of them under the fog that blanketed the rocks below. Seconds later though they burst through the cloud and landed on a boulder far away from the waterfall.

Talon coughed and hacked as he choked on muddy water, his sinuses were burning and his ears were stuffy with water. Gilda glided next to them asked if he was okay.

"I'm okay, I guess." He started tapping his head to get the water out of his ears.

"How did this happen? I mean, who or what stopped the water from flowing?" Flare asked.

Talon stood up and shook the water off his coat then preened his feathers. "I bet it was that flying freak we saw take off earlier."

"What do you think he was? A dragon maybe? I never seen anyone fly that fast before."

"No, dragons don't have feathers. And if they do it's not natural." Gilda's eyes narrowed.

"Then wha...? You can't be serious? A pony, really?"

"I've seen them fly before. I could recognize one with a blindfold on."

"Alright, that's great. I officially name you two Flarelock Holmes and Gildson." Talon finished preening his feathers and flapped them, kicking up small whirlwinds under his wings. "Good as new."

"I don't who that pony was, but I bet I know who can tell us." Gilda took off. "Come on, we're going pay a visit to Equestria."

Yes there will be more chapters coming up and hopefully they will be just as entertaining and maybe even a little longer. As long as i can beat procrastination and writers block.


	2. Chapter 2

Alright here is the second chapter to my other story. It took longer than i thought it would, i'm not gonna lie, it wasn't because of the holidays i just need to prioritize better and quit procrastinating. But sometimes procrastination serves its purpose and lets me find a definitive end to a story. Just like this one, expect it to end somewhere in between the 6th and 8th chapter. I'll try to continue it as part of a S3 pony series but that will only happen if i come up with good ideas for episodes. i took enough of your time, enjoy!

I own nothing but my OC's.

...

Rainbow Dash hurried up and poured the last bucket of water into the cloud maker which shot up a burst of steam. Then she put the bucket down and moved on to the storm center where she prepped the cloud for a strong shower and pushed it out for final inspection. As she was rushing back and forth everyone kept their eyes on her, she had never worked this hard or this fast before in her life. Sunburst, the head weatherpony, kept his eye on her the entire time.

"Gotta work faster. Only three hours left before..."

"Rainbow dash."

"Aahh!" Dash dropped barometer as the boss called her name. "Y-yes sir?"

"You seem to be working extra hard today. Are you gunning for a raise?"

"What? Oh, no,no,no. Nothing like that."

"Then you're trying to get transferred to Dewdrop's department."

"No, not that either..."

"Because if you really want out of here you could just ask." Sunburst frowned.

"No, sir, please."

"Of course, if you just want to finish your work early so you can have time to practice before that big competition of yours. Well, you could've just ask for the day off."

Sunburst's words hit her hard. She never thought of asking for the day off, suddenly she smiled and warmed up to her boss.

"So you're saying it's okay if I take off early then?"

Sunburst smiled, "Go get them Dash. Show'em what Cloudsdale ponies are made off."

Rainbow Dash leapt up into the air with a woohoo and took off. Sunburst made his way back to the office when one of the pegasi on the line called his attention.

"Hey, you never said we could take a day off."

"You never asked."

…...

A blur and a rush of air passed by Twilight Sparkle, Scootaloo and Spike. Spike checked his stopwatch and wrote down her time then showed it to Twilight.

"YEAH! Go Rainbow Dash!"

"Wow, that was her fastest lap yet. If she keeps this up she'll hit rainboom speeds while in a horizontal position."

"Huh?"

"That's when she's flying straight forward. You see the last time Rainbow Dash did a sonic rainboom she was flying straight down. So gravity was actually helping her a lot then. Now if she keeps training like this she'll be able pull off a sonic rainboom without any help at all."

"So does that mean Rainbow is going to be way more cooler than she is now?" Scootaloo beamed at the idea.

"About 20% cooler by my calculations." Twilight winked.

"YYYYEEEAAAAHHHHH!" Rainbow Dash burst through the clouds and flew around the checkpoint cloud. She dipped below and above the clouds several times, up next she would have to fly through the straight away and then another set of dips before taking the final dive. Dash set up her own practice course several days earlier, and ever since then she practiced every chance she got. She had to if she wanted to beat every other racer that was going to enter the Lightning Jubilee. Images of the awards ceremony filled her head as she rounded the corner and flew down the stretch. She imagined herself being at the front of the pack, leaving everypony else in her rainbow colored dust. Rainbow Dash turned another corner and closed her eyes as she started dipping up and down again. The roar of the crowd, the celebration at the winner's circle, and finally Spitfire would ask her to join the wonderbolts. Rainbow Dash opened her eyes smiling as she prepared to go for the final dive, suddenly a black pony jumped out in front of her.

"Aaaahhh!" Rainbow Dash put on the brakes but it was too little too late. Rainbow collided with the very surprised pony in a blackout inducing crash. She woke up a short time later in a daze, free falling to the ground. She flailed her legs wildly to try to regain her balance before she remembered she had wings. Dash flapped and fluttered her wings to no avail, she couldn't make out land from sky as the two continued to switch places with each other.

On the ground Twilight had seen the crash and started working on a spell to save her friend. Twilight magically spawned a thick layer of pillows as a precaution and then got to work on a spell to catch her friend in mid-air. She wanted to catch her as quickly as possible as the colt that crashed into her was also falling towards the everfree forest. And though he was conscious he was only flapping one wing as he fell, meaning he hurt the other one.

Rainbow Dash was getting closer but Twilight still couldn't reach her with her magic.

"Twilight hurry!"

Scootaloo wasn't helping, Twilight was frantic enough as it was, if she didn't time the spell right...

Twilight stopped concentrating when she saw a familiar griffon grab hold of Rainbow Dash. It was Gilda, and she was accompanied by two other griffons she'd never seen before. Gilda floated down next to her and placed Dash on the pillows, she let out a sickly moan and held her head. She may have been on the ground, but the world was still spinning around her.

"Boy, it sure was lucky you showed up Gilda." Twilight said uneasily. She wasn't sure how Gilda would take to her. For all she knew she might still be worked up over what happened the last time she was in ponyville.

"Luck had nothing to do. We were following some pony punk who almost drowned Talon." Gilda said as she looked over he shoulder. "Where is he?"

"Uh...?"

"Don't play dumb." Gilda confronted her. "There's not much to run into up in the air, so where is he?" Gilda really got into Twilight's face when she asked again.

"Well, I don't really know. I saw him falling to the everfree forest, but..."

"Alright, you heard her let's go."

Gilda and the other two griffon's took off without another word.

"Wait! What are you going to do? He might be really hurt!" Twilight looked back at Rainbow Dash who was still googly eyed and sick looking. "Come on, Spike. We have to find that pony before Gilda does. Scootaloo, you stay here with Rainbow Dash and try to bring her around."

"Will do." She said. Spike climbed onto Twilight's back as she reared up her front legs and ran to the everfree forest.

…...

The world was dark around the young Colt. His eyelids were heavy and every sound seemed muffled to him. As he began to stir he became aware of a pain somewhere in his body, although it felt like it was outside his body, as if he were feeling someone else's pain. The reality caught him by the short hairs as he tried to stand up. The white hot sensation carved its way into the base of his skull as put weight on his front left leg. He collapsed and grit his teeth as the pain that once seemed far way now lodged itself into his left wing. He opened his eyes when he realized they were shut closed with fatigue and found himself in a dark forest with the sun shining down on him through an angled chunk in the canopy.

He inspected his leg to see if it was broke or not, he had to concentrate for some time before his vision cleared up enough for him to see anything. As it turned out his leg did seem to have an extra joint in it, but he hazard the guess that it was only dislocated. He smelled blood and knew his nose was bleeding. As for his wing it just seemed to be a harsh sprain. The colt maneuvered himself on the ground until his three uninjured legs were under him. Just when he was about to stand he heard wing beats overhead, wondering who it was he called out for help and put his weight against the tree next to him. To his surprise a griffon landed roughly just beyond the spot of sunlight, she looked up at him from under his ruffled feathers.

He put all of his weight onto his three uninjured legs and stood up, his back popping like a sheet of bubble wrap. Though he wasn't really happy to see a griffon, he was glad someone arrived to help. Colt noticed several shadows dart back and forth across the light several times before they joined with their real life counterparts. The two griffons manifested themselves from the light above and landed swiftly on either side of him.

"I'm not in Griffon territory am I?" he thought to himself. Before he could formally introduce himself however the lead griffon clacked his beak and tensed his claws against the soft forest floor. The colt picked his head up and tensed his body. Whoever this was, he wasn't here to help.

...

What will happen next i wonder? Will Rainbow Dash make an appearance? Will Spike make a funny joke? Will my younger audience get this soap reference? The answers to these questions and many more is almost certainly no. Trololololol.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Talon's cold steel gray eyes met with the colt's frantic crimson gaze. For a moment both of them just stared at each other, neither Gilda or Flare said anything, but traded looks with each other right before Talon's hindquarters tensed up. The colt saw them exchange looks however and knew they weren't going to stay out of this one. So when Talon finally sprung at him he reared up and beat his good wing hard enough to create a gust of wind that caught itself in the griffon's own wings. The gust caused him to flip end over end until he landed on his head where he started. His eyes rolled around in their sockets until he got his bearings back.

Talon stood up and turned around, "You're going to regret that!" He yelled at the colt. Gilda and Flare flanked him and instantly attacked. He whirled to dodge Flare's tackle, but Gilda had taken flight and remained in his blind spot until the last second as she landed on top of him. The pain shot through him again as he felt both his weight and Gilda's on top of his leg. It gave him enough incentive to support both of their bodies on his front leg and pushed off the ground. He bucked when he got his hind legs under him again, pushing back just long enough to turn quickly and counter her next attack.

His effort proved useless however as the strenuous effort caused him to become dizzy and lose his orientation. He stumbled as he turned and was pushed onto his back by Gilda as she roared in his face. Dizzy or not the colt wasn't ready yet to lose a fight or worse, become a griffon's next meal. He pulled his legs in under her stomach and kicked her off of him. Gilda was taken by surprise as she flew up into a tree and got stuck in its thick branches. The colt got up again in worse shape than before but became coherent enough for second to see Talon coming at him, unfortunately he came at him too fast and he was forced to use his sprained wing to shield himself and push him away.

He was finished, he felt himself becoming more and more lightheaded until he could no longer feel the ground beneath his feet. Before anything else happened he sat against a tree, his mind cloudy he barely manage to string the words together for a proper question, "What do you want with me Flocker?"

"What I want is payback." Talon drew closer to the colt. "What were you doing at the Snake's Tail?"

"What?" His response was barely audible.

"You did something to stop the water from flowing didn't you?" Talon shoved his face into the colt's, who seemed to be falling asleep. "Didn't you!"

"I was just working out. What? You some kind of farmboy?"

"I almost drowned because of you! And now you're gonna pay."

The colt looked at the double image of the griffon as he raised his paw over his head and felt something stir inside of him. He held the urge down however when he heard a new voice.

"Hold on there pardner. Three on one seems a might bit unfair to me." Applejack rode in from the darkness with Winona at her heels. She took up a position in between Talon and the colt, Winona stood beside her growling.

"Who are you supposed to be?"

"I know her," Gilda said. "She's one of Dash's lame pony friends."

"That's Applejack to you missy. Okay Winona, call Twilight over here." Winona reared her head back and howled. Twilight materialized seconds later with Spike on her back. She looked from the battered colt to the griffons.

"Alright Gilda you and your friends don't have any business here."

"It's plenty our business. We got a score to settle with that pony so get out of the way if you know whats good for you."

"And just what is your business with him?"

"The middle one almost drowned because of him, apparently." Applejack said.

"Alright, fine. He endangered your life, I get that. What I don't get is why you would want to hurt him more than he already is."

Talon looked behind her at the colt. Blood was still dripping from his nose and soaking into the ground, his body was covered in scratches he got from the fall and Gilda. And he just noticed how swollen his leg looked, along with his wing which he didn't fold like he did the other one. Honestly deep down he felt kind of sorry for him. But Flare was with him, and so was Gilda, if he didn't want to seem weak he had to pretend he was still mad. Still, he wasn't going to kick someone when he was down. So he had to figure out a way out that also made him look good in front of them.

"Quit preaching and get out of the way hornhead." Flare shot Twilight a dirty look.

"Watch what you say around me Flare."Rainbow Dash said as she dropped out of the sky. "You were always such a big mouth."

"Look who made it back around. I thought this was going to be like that time you crashed into the airship at the academy." Flare laughed. "Remember that one Gilda?"

Gilda laughed nervously, "Haha, yeah. That was real smooth Dashie."

Rainbow Dash was confused, Gilda hadn't called her Dashie since they were in junior flight school. She shook it off though and focused more on Flare. "Her name isn't hornhead, it's Twilight. Think you can remember that, featherbrain?"

"Listen here, 'Dashie' I..."

"Enough Flare, let's just get out of here."

"What?" Flare and Gilda said together.

"But you said you wanted to get even." Flare pleaded.

"Yeah, you're not going to let some little ponies scare you off are ya?"

Talon gave them both a condescending look. "I'm not scared of any pony, and I do want to get even. But just look at him, he got what he deserved."

He waited to see if the girls would agree with him, and after a short pause he was relieved that Gilda agreed with him.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Huh? But..." Flare was confused as to why they both suddenly turned from their original intentions.

"Flare just drop it. This is all time we could be using training for the competition anyway." Talon said as he walked away.

"Practice?" Dash asked. But the griffons were already taking off and didn't pay any attention.

"Ooh, you don't look so good." Twilight said as she looked at the colt. Since the girls had shown up he had recovered a bit. The strange urge he had felt a few moments ago was gone, his head cleared up a bit, and the double images were gone. Now he saw a purple unicorn standing in front of him looking quite concerned.

"Shucks, and here I was about to ask you to the box social." He stifled his chuckle shortly after due to his injured side. "Yea, I'm pretty beat up."

"Alright try not to move so much. I've studied medicine before and it seems like you might have a broken, and my guess is they did a number on your ribs too."

"No that was from the fall." a light went off in his head. "Wait, how did I fall? There isn't much to crash into in the air?"

Twilight lowered her ears and looked sideways at Rainbow Dash, she seemed a bit embarrassed.

"Uhh, we'll look into that later. Right now we need to get you medical attention. Hang on, I'll use a teleportation spell to get us as close to nurse Goodheart's office as I can."

Everybody huddled around Twilight and the injured colt as her horn started glowing. Winona sniffed his shoulder and started licking at some of his scratches.

"Winona, bad girl."

And in a flash of light they were gone.


End file.
